The market for home security systems is growing at accelerated pace, driven by increased concerns about general and residential security; this market represents an important part of an overlap of two broader markets, namely, all residential and business electronic security systems, and home automation. By 2020, the global market for electronic security systems is expected to reach $80 billion, while market size for home security systems is projected to increase by approximately nine percent per year from less than $30 billion in 2015 to reach $47.5 billion in 2020. Some analysts forecast that the size of the home security solutions market alone will reach $74.3 billion by 2025. North America represents the largest part of the market. Key players in the electronic security system products and services measured by numbers of installed units in the United States are ADT, Monitronics International, Vivint Inc., Tyco Integrated Security, and Vector Security Inc., with combined 9.5 million units installed. ADT is by far the largest vendor with over six million installed units.
Home security vendors offer a broad range of products and solutions for electronic security systems and services, aimed at various types of dwellings, such as tower blocks, regular apartment blocks, condominiums, and private homes. Home security product offerings tracked by some market analytics firms are segmented into electronic locks, sensors, cameras, panic buttons, fire sprinklers & extinguishers, and alarms, while security solutions include medical alert systems, intruder alarm systems, access control & management systems, intercom systems, video surveillance systems, fire protection systems, and integrated systems.
Differentiated assessments of market size for various residential security products are based on property distribution by categories. With approximately 76 millions of free-standing, single family homes in the US, where almost 56 millions of those family homes are residing in lightly populated areas, outside of city centers and dense urban environments (US Census data), only 30% of those homes currently have any kind of a home security system. While this number exceeds by almost two times the percentage of security system present in all US homes (15-17%, according to recent statistics), it shows nevertheless a high unsatisfied demand in advanced home security systems.
Notwithstanding significant progress in developing home security systems and services, current product offerings have significant flaws, especially for free-standing family homes. Existing home security systems are predominantly designed as home invasion sensors and solutions; they do not protect the rest of the property or its external perimeter and do not provide any kind of preventive tracking of potential intruders.
The core design of home security systems has not advanced in several decades. For example, magnetic entry sensors paired with a control unit connected to a landline have served as the basic design since the early 1970s, and even with the use of wireless sensors and cellular connections, contemporary systems continue to utilize the same system design and principles. The setup of a CCTV based home surveillance system still requires expensive installation, extensive wiring and obtrusive mounting of cameras, which are customarily mounted on the house that the cameras are trying to protect, resulting in less than optimal observation angles. Moreover, the experience using a typical home security system is cumbersome.
Accordingly, it is desirable to create a home security system that benefits from advances in sensor technology, protects an expanded security perimeter, provides preventive tracking of potential intruders, takes advantage of wireless and mobile solutions, and provides a privacy-conscious solution.